4/07/2006

Well's it's been quite a week for healthcare news.

Massive Reform in Mass.
Most importantly, we saw plenty of coverage on MA's new approved bill that will mandate every resident in MA to purchase healthcare insurance. Lots of folks are also speculating what this bill will do to Mass Gov Mitt Romney's chances for '08. Given the bill's moderate approach, Mitt gets criticism from both ends. The Left dislikes making folks purchase insurance. The Right dislikes boosting government spending. Whatever the case, the lobbyists are loving it. How appropriate that HFMA is hosting a conference on Serving the Uninsured in Boston starting this Sunday.

HealthGrades: Medical Errors keep going up
Between 2002 and 2004, 1.24MM hospital errors were made that led to "patient safety incidents", increasing cost by $9.3B. Even more important, there were 250,000 preventable deaths.

Google Knows CDHP
More rumors are surfacing around whether google is entering the health space. A google-watching blog: "The idea is to build a specialized capability into Google for dealing with medical searches, in the same way they currently have special handling of movie and music searches."

2/3 of Docs don't like Bush's P4P Agenda
HRA Research polled almost 3,000 docs: 62% of them "do not support the Bush administration's push to publicize performance of health care providers and link Medicare payments to quality via P4P arrangements." Now that I've got your attention, let me discredit that statistic completely with another: 44% of docs don't know if they agree or disagree with the agreement between the AMA and Congress on the 100 standard measures. In other words, "I don't know what it will be, so I don't like it."

Physicians in the Media
Speaking of docs, ABC's feel-good reality show "Miracle Workers," which features doctors doing amazing procedures to help hopeless patients, has had some buzz. One of their patients dies, but they still decide to air the episode. The producers explain that viewers will realize both the power and limitations of modern medicine.

On a separate note, I was totally entranced by a great NPR segment on two doctors who got cancer, and how being an MD added special challenges/opportunities to their path towards recovery.

Crazy Illinois Hospital Bill Postponed
This bill was to require all tax-exempt hospitals in IL to provide charity care equal to at least 8% of the hospital's total operating cost. Though a spokeman said that the bill was "too complex," more likely, the bond insurers and ratings agencies (and hospital association) talked some sense into them.

Finally, if you haven't already, check out the 4th installment of the Health Wonk Review, the bi-weekly compilation of the best of healthcare policy and leadership issues.